The purpose of this study is to analyze the current state of human resources development (HRD) in enterprises and identify the problems at hand. Based on these results, measures to promote and strengthen in-firm HRD will be suggested. The main findings are as follows:
First, in advanced economies various efforts are being made to increase the functional flexibility of workers which allows firms to expand their range of tasks. This indicates that firms are investing in the education and training aspects of HRD to meet rapidly changing economic environment.
Second, the developmental stages of in-firm HRD in Korea was carefully analyzed in order to identify and remedy the problems in the current state of HRD in Korean firms. Since the implementation of the Act on Workers' Vocational Training Promotion, it has been found that there is a sharp decrease in basic training, with further training establishing itself as the dominant form of training. In 1999, reemployment training for unemployed workers took up 72.1% of total government support, showing that the current vocational competency development program is rather ineffective in preventing unemployment.
Third, interviews with training personnel and a survey of 500 firms on the HRD practices in firms was conducted in order to derive comprehensive measures to improve HRD in firms. According to the results of the survey, 31% of firms had a separate department overseeing workers' training, while 47% designated authorities in times of need. For firms with less than 50 employees, in particular, a third did not have an independent training department or relevant personnel. In terms of budget distribution, 44.6% of firms responded that they did not have any particular standard. In most firms, training costs accounted for 1 to 5 % of total wages.
Most often-cited as "field to train workers" workers were business, new technology development, field production technical workers. In the short to mid-term (within the next five years), less demand for workers in the business section, field production technology section, and office management section is predicted. On the other hand, the importance of workers in new technology development, core professions, and international professions will increase in comparison. In terms of occupation, priority was given to the development of technical operator, personnel management, and quality control. The most desired traits in workers were creativity, information gathering and analysis abilities, and interpersonal skills. In the short to medium terms, these skills plus foreign language skills were seen to be more critical.
Most training programs in firms were ones based on the worker's position and for job upgrading. Only 36% of firms provided courses in computer literacy training and 15.4% provided courses in education for internationalization. These results demonstrate that despite the stated objectives, firms are slow in adjusting to "informationalization" and internationalization.
In general, the main targets of training programs were entry-level workers in the business department or mid-career managers. Although it is stated that priority should be given to the vocational development of field production technical workers, they receive very few training opportunities. In particular, their participation levels in internationalization and computer training were as low as 2.1% and 1.2% respectively.
The most prevalent methods of training were in-house training and also seminars and training programs at external institutions. The workplace was the most widely used venue of training. The provision of training using information technology such as cyber-education was conducted in less than 5% of the firms surveyed, which shows that vocational training in Korea is unable to break the practice of institutional training.
Firms relied on outside professionals rather than in-firm instructors for delivering training to workers.
With the exception of basic training, most training programs were 24 hours in duration. On the other hand, 23.1 to 38.8% of training programs were under 20 hours in duration and thus not recognized as training programs. As a measure to promote vocational training in firms, the removal of such restrictions should be considered.
It was confirmed that the smaller the firm size, the less likely it was to engage in the training of its workers. The government should thus focus on providing full support to small and medium-sized firms in its vocational competency development program through institutionalized measures.
The general thrust of vocational competency development programs in firms involve reorganization of tasks, circulation of workers into different departments, and support for qualification acquisition. Support measures for transferring or replaced workers were nearly invisible. For instance, only 0.8% of firms had training programs for business startup and 1.4% answered that they ran a retirement preparation course. The biggest problems for pursuing vocational training in firms were difficulties in developing effective training programs, finding qualified instructors, and evaluating effectiveness of training.
In order to revitalize in-firm HRD, firms needed to first establish a long-term vision for human resource development. Also important were the committment of management and the strengthening of practical training. Large industries stressed strategic vision, while small firms put their emphasis on practical training and governmental support. Irrespective of firm size, the participation of labor unions in workers' HRD was limited, with active participation of labor unions in only 35% of firms.
For further strengthening HRD in firms, the government should significantly increase its support to small and medium sized firms, set up training programs for development of training courses and methods, and provide firms with effective training courses and costs free of cost.
Fourth, the current status of incumbent workers' participation in training was analyzed in order to seek comprehensive measures to improve HRD in firms. Overall, only 38.7% of workers had participated at least once in training in the past twelve months. The most frequently cited reasons for not participating was the lack of suitable courses and shortage of information. It is predicted that participation in training can be raised through firm requests, more information, and provision of suitable training courses, showing the importance of the conviction of employers toward HRD and training course development. In general, the performance of workers who have received training was comparatively higher to those who have not. This was especially true for education for internationalization, which led to immediate and tangible results such as promotion or acquisition of qualification. The most effective method of acquiring work-related knowledge or skills was found to be through the help of co-workers or senior workers. However, on-the-job training was carried out in an unsystematic and arbitrary manner.
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